Employees celebrated, gratitude expressed

Tuesday

Mar 11, 2014 at 1:00 PM

The Otero County Commissioners had an abundance of thanks and celebrations on Monday. Larry Cook received an official letter of appreciation from the Colorado House of Representatives for his 37 years of service to the State of Colorado.

Bette McFarrenbmcfarren@ljtdmail.com

The Otero County Commissioners had an abundance of thanks and celebrations on Monday. Larry Cook received an official letter of appreciation from the Colorado House of Representatives for his 37 years of service to the State of Colorado as well as a letter of appreciation from U.S. Senator Mark Udall, which also urged him to continue his service to the community through his music. Cook said his new avocation is house cleaning and cooking.

The commissioners sent a letter of appreciation to Gov. Hickenlooper thanking him for providing assistance on March 4 in locating and capturing three of the four escaped inmates from the Otero County Jail. The swift reaction provided the necessary resources from the Colorado Department of Corrections, the governor's staff, Roxanne White and others who were professional and exemplary in their efforts.

George Hanzas, visitor, asked if Otero County would have to pay for the assistance, which involved extensive helicopter surveillance. Commissioner Kevin Karney said no, the swift reaction was because one of the fugitives was officially assigned to the Department of Corrections, bound for the state penitentiary. Department of Corrections took charge right away, but relinquished control to the sheriff's department after the first three fugitives were apprehended.

Otero County and the Town of Cheraw have entered into a mutual aid agreement. In case of wildfires, the requesting agency will be responsible for fuel, food and tires for the first eight hours of the response for the answering agency.

The county, by Resolution 2014-07, adopted the Southeast Colorado Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan. Eligibility for Federal Emergency Management Agency action depends upon adoption of a hazard mitigation plan. The Southeast Colorado Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan recognized these hazards as most likely to occur: levee failure, drought, excessive hot and cold temperatures, severe weather, tornados, wildfires, winter storms and hazardous materials spills. Each of the counties in the six-county region will have to act similarly.

Susan Holzclaw of Rocky Ford was appointed to the Otero County Historic Preservation Board. She will join Cullen Johnson, Rebecca Goodwin, Kevin Lindahl, Alexa Roberts, Ed Stafford and Norm Kincaid on the board.

Commissioner Kevin Karney reported on the Arkansas River Basin Round Table Summit in Denver, where the main topic was the Governor's Water Plan for Colorado. Keith Goodwin reported on the National Association of Counties Conference in Washington, D.C., last week, where his favorite day was the Information Technology session. He learned of a pool of information being created by larger counties for help to smaller counties when problems are encountered. In some cases, software may have been created to deal with the problems, possibly available free to the smaller counties.

Otero County has a new intern, Natalya Sharovtova, OJC student from Uzbekistan, who will be working in various departments on days determined by her class schedule. She has been named as recipient of one of the Rising Star awards by the Colorado Community College State Student Advisory Council, to be recognized at a luncheon on April 8 at Arapahoe Community College - Littleton Campus.